Twelve months later, here's how Coinbase and Bybit ended up splitting between different jobs for me
Not going to bother explaining what either of these is, anyone clicking on this thread already knows. This isn't meant as a definitive call on which is better, it's just where I personally landed after using both.
Everyone's situation pushes them toward different setups so take this for what it is. Putting it together mainly because I remember how much time I burned figuring this stuff out solo when I was starting, and if it spares one person that wandering phase, good.
Ran both accounts side by side for around twelve months and stopped trying to decide between them. They ended up doing different things for me without me really planning it.
Coinbase became the place where I keep stuff for the long haul and where any actual dollars come in or go out. Bank transfers either direction are quick and just work. They're listed on NASDAQ, US-regulated, and for amounts I'm sitting on for months at a stretch I'd rather have that regulatory floor than scrape a few basis points off fees.
I also have a friend in the States who literally has no access to Bybit because of where he lives, which is a recurring reminder that for a large slice of users Coinbase is just the default answer.
Quick note for newer people on Coinbase.
The default Buy/Sell screen is genuinely expensive. The cost sits inside the spread so there's no fee line item, but you're paying well over market without realizing it. Coinbase Advanced is the same underlying exchange with proper fee tiers and an actual order book. The trap a lot of people fall into is using the wrong interface and writing off the whole platform as overpriced, when really it's a UI issue you can sidestep once you know.
Bybit is where anything active gets done. Especially perps. The derivatives liquidity on major pairs runs deeper, perp fees come in lower at the standard tier, and new tokens hit the listings faster, sometimes by a noticeable margin versus Coinbase. When a narrative is moving and the asset is only on a handful of venues at first, that's typically where the price action happens before bigger exchanges add it.
Once you go past the obvious major tokens, Bybit simply has the wider pair list. Coinbase keeps adding but they're picky about what passes their internal review, which makes sense for the audience they're serving and is also a limit if you want any sort of exposure to newer projects.
Boils down to this.
US retail looking for maximum regulatory comfort, Coinbase is essentially the default since Bybit isn't really on the table anyway. Outside the US with any real trading activity, Bybit hands you more tools at lower cost. Anyone in the middle ground, splitting them across different purposes is workable and I've stopped second-guessing it.
Interested how others who run both ended up dividing things between them. Or are most people just sticking with one and accepting whatever the platform doesn't do well